In a new ad in support of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, rom-com queen Julia Roberts tells married women that they don’t have to vote the same way as their husbands. While narrating the ad showing a woman privately voting for Harris while her husband waits at the exit, Roberts reminds women that,  

“You can vote any way you want, and no one will ever know. Remember what happens in the booth, stays in the booth.”

There is so much wrong with this ad. For starters, anyone who has voted knows we have a secret ballot. This isn’t big news, a reveal, or a change. This ad is less about sharing the news that you can privately vote for whichever candidate you want to vote for and more about promoting the idea that women who don’t vote for Harris are doing so solely because they are controlled by their husbands.

The ad paints married women who vote conservative as unable to think for themselves or make their own choices. Instead, their husbands are pulling their puppet strings. This is insulting to conservative women and to their husbands. And I don’t think it is a convincing way to encourage women to change their vote.

This narrative about conservative women is not new. Democrats have been infantilizing women who don’t vote the way they want for many elections. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton blamed her failed 2016 campaign on women who buckle to “ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.” Former first lady Michelle Obama said, “Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice.”

The ad is sponsored by Vote Common Good, which is organized to give Evangelical and Catholic voters an “‘exit ramp’ from supporting the Republicans who sacrifice the common good.” It is a tough road for this group— 62% of registered voters who attended religious services at least monthly are Republicans, and 59% of Protestant registered voters align with Republicans.

The ad gets one thing right— Democrats have a married woman problem. In recent elections, Democrats have lost married women. In the 2020 presidential election, Democrats won 63% of unmarried women, but only 47% of married women. In 2016, even Hillary Clinton did not win a majority of married women. In that election, Democrats won 49% of married women and 63% of unmarried women. In 2012, Democrats won 46% of married women compared to 67% of unmarried women. Similarly in 2008, Democrats won 70% of unmarried women, but only 47% of married women.

After the 2022 midterm election, there was much talk of how single woke women were driving America left. This dramatic headline from the Daily Mail particularly caught my attention, “Women who are delaying marriage or having kids are the ‘sleeping giants’ of American politics: How ‘Single Woke Females’ are bucking ‘conservative’ traditions and turning into critical voters who could give Dems the edge for years.” According to CNN’s 2022 exit polls for the U.S. House races, 68% of unmarried women voted for Democrats, the highest percentage compared to married women (42%), unmarried men (45%), and married men (39%).

It turns out that women, especially married women, care about a lot of issues, not just abortion as Democrats would have us believe. For all the talk of childless cat ladies this election cycle, married women might be the group to watch.

This piece was originally published by The Conservateur.